The son of a shepherd from the Scottish borders, Thomas Telford rose to be the greatest engineer in Victorian Britain, who bridges, aqueducts, roads and canals combined aesthetic grace with brilliant engineering. His life spanned one of the most dynamic periods in British history, the decades of the[...]

In 1783 the Montgolfier brothers made history with the first hot-air balloon flight. Their exploits, and those of Rozier, Lunardi, Blanchard and other pioneering aeronauts, attracted the attention and admiration of the masses like nothing before. The aeronauts became heroes of their time. This new e[...]